


(Loss)

by ardett



Series: Platonic VLD Week 2017 [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Coping Mechanisms, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Memory lapse, Mild Blood, Minor Violence, Platonic VLD Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-26 09:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9883871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardett/pseuds/ardett
Summary: Shiro almost loses Pidge. Instead, he loses himself.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For [Platonic VLD Week](http://platonicvldweek.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Day Two Prompt: ~~Quiet~~ / Chaos

The air is wild and alight with the blaze of lasers. It tastes of singed wind and adrenaline. The clouds swell with collected screams and trigger clicks.

They are retreating. They have evacuated all the citizens of this city. There is no one else and nothing else to save, only ruins and the ruined. Still, the Galra advance. There will only be more destruction.

They are retreating.

They run to the castle, the ground hard-packed under their racing feet from a thousand marching soldiers. They scramble up the ramp, throwing looks behind themselves, barely raising shields in time to block the Galra’s blasts.

Shiro’s feet hit the metal and he whips around, trying to shoot defensively at the oncoming forces as he frantically waves the other paladins in. Lance trips just meters away but Hunk hauls him to his feet as Keith protects them with his shield. Shiro counts his paladins as they run into the castle.

Keith, Lance, Hunk.

It feels like something has reached into his chest and ripped out his lungs. His breathes goes ragged.

“Shiro!” Lance's voice cracks as he screams desperately for Shiro to come aboard.

_Where is Pidge?_

“Stay here!” Immediately, there's an uproar from the other paladins but Shiro's attention has narrowed to only the troops advancing on them.

He scans for any trace of green but the purple wall before him is impenetrable. He doesn't see any gap to force his way through. Even if he could, he doesn't even know where they  _lost Pidge._

He takes one step forward before despair grabs hold of his limbs. He knows it would be suicide to charge blindly into the enemy; retracing their steps is impossible. But he was supposed to be the leader, how could he let Pidge, their smallest and youngest paladin, slip between his fingers? He will never forgive himself if… if…

Allura’s voice sounds through the intercom. “Paladins, we have to go now!”

He looks back at the three others behind him, only three, and the way they hold themselves ready to retreat further into the ship, the way Keith's hand hovers over the button that will seal the ramp shut.

_No no no._

“PIDGE!” Something in his throat rips and for the first time, he really feels hopeless.

He can't make this choice. Whatever god or being controls this world or the next, _please-_

Someone screams, and it is young and female and _in pain,_ and Shiro knows.

He whips towards the sound, towards the densest part of the army. For a second, he stares at the rows and rows of soldiers. Then, he only sees snapshots glimpsed between blinks and blinding laser blasts, glimpsed between the hair in his face and the blood in his eyes.

He sees the glow of his arm light up a elongated fang. He sees a charred handprint warp a gun’s metal. He sees a leg bent too far. He sees fingers still clutching triggers laying in the dirt. He sees bloodied teeth and burning uniforms. He sees scars reopened.

Another soldier crumples before him. He doesn’t know how far he’s come but he is surrounded, surrounded by bodies, and he needs to keep going but where is Pidge? _Where is Pidge?_

A gasp, a sob, some twisted child of the two, echos in his left ear. He dives back into the battle to follow it.

A few more steps and then, and then- his heart almost gives out with relief- he sees Pidge.

Her bayard is in her left hand and her right arm is clearly broken, mangled and bloody and at all the wrong angles. Her teeth are gritted, her eyes half closed. There are Galra attacking from every side and as Shiro watches, he sees Pidge throw up a shield with the wrong arm, her broken arm, and nearly collapse. Her face is still angry and determined but tears slip out anyway.

Shiro doesn’t see Pidge anymore.

He sees Matt.

_Not again, please, not again._

His mind skips like a scratched disc.

 

There’s a queer sort of silence in the air.

Pidge is staring at him. Pidge is close enough to touch. How-

His clothes are soaked in something warm, is it-

He looks down at his hands and they are coated in-

The two of them are surrounded, surrounded by things covered in burns the shape of fingers and handprints. They surrounded by-

Did he- Are they-

“Shiro?” Pidge whispers. Her eyes are too wide, flicking from Shiro’s own gaze to the devastation around them.

Shiro raises his hands to hold Pidge, but her eyes dart to his robotic arm, almost like she’s nervous, almost like she’s afraid. He wrenches back, almost tripping over a discarded gun that’s covered in something red, it’s covered in-

It reminds him of something else, when there was a boy with the same tousled brown hair, when the same corrupted glow was coming from his replaced arm, when everything was also coated in- soaked in- covered in-

“It’s okay. Shiro, you’re okay. Shiro, can you hear me?” Pidge is holding his hand, her eyes are still darting around, and there is panic in her voice. “We have to go. Reinforcement are coming. I- I can’t go by myself. You have to pull yourself together, Shiro.”

He doesn’t pull himself together.

That’s not how he did it before.

No, he shuts down. He shuts it all down. His arm powers off.

He doesn’t look at the- (bodies)

He doesn’t think about the- (blood)

He doesn’t feel the- (pain)

He grabs Pidge and they run back to the ship, feet slipping on the slick, saturated ground.

As soon as they’re in, Keith seals the door behind them. Hunk rushes for Pidge. Lance grabs Shiro’s waist right before he collapses. Allura’s shouts come through the speaking, asking if they’re all on board. Someone yells back an answer. Shiro feels the castle reverberate beneath them and they take off.

As Hunk whisks Pidge away, he hears her murmur, “Don’t tell him, don’t tell him what happened.”


End file.
